Philosophy’s most famous wager was proposed by Blaise Pascal: it’s far better to bet on God’s existence than to be an atheist. If you’re right, after death you will be resurrected to enjoy beatitude. If you’re wrong, you die but literally never have time for regrets: God doesn’t exist and neither do you.
People have been pointing out problems with Pascal’s wager ever since he made it. We shouldn’t be surprised that President George Vella’s recent wager, on a national unity conference, has attracted similar scepticism.
Vella’s wager resembles Pascal’s: let’s talk as though unity is possible. If we succeed, we win big. If we fail, we’re merely back to where we are now.
Pascal asks more of us. Vella isn’t asking us to believe an article of faith; he’s asking us to give dialogue a chance. We can retain our scepticism. We can back out any time we want. We don’t need to commit for a lifetime. We don’t need to suspend legitimate democratic demands.
It’s Vella who’s risking something. He could have had a tranquil life doing presidential things like meeting band clubs, unveiling plaques, hosting dinners and receiving authors. A conference on national unity, however, can easily go nowhere or somewhere perverse. Vella has chosen to risk looking like a fool or, worse, a useful idiot for those who invoke unity to suppress democratic debate.
The initiative has been criticised anyway. Some have demanded that Vella prove he is in good faith if he wants half the country to trust him. They want him to begin with a renunciation of the devil himself, the disgraced Joseph Muscat.
Such critics haven’t thought things through. They are right to say corruption destroys unity. There can be, ultimately, no unity without justice. But they are asking the president to make a speech that would create partisan controversy. Vella couldn’t make such a speech without offering his instant resignation.
The demand, therefore, amounts to saying: “The conference should only take place if you make a speech that would lose you the power to organise it.” Right.
Other critics point their fingers at the Labour background of several of the speakers. “What? A former editor of the General Workers’ Union newspaper, It-Torċa, speaking to us about unity? (A former Labour education secretary and One radio presenter, to boot?)”
Now, it is true that – how shall I put this while respecting the spirit of the conference? – It-Torċa editors’ behaviour towards national unity resembles that of well-bred Victorian maidens towards eligible bachelors: no embraces in public.
But Aleks Farrugia threw off his It-Torċa chastity belt years ago and we should allow he may have some insight into unity that he gained precisely because of the positions he occupied.
If a speaker wastes the opportunity by spouting banalities, we’d have lost nothing but a little time. In any case, it’s a mistake to imagine that any single speaker is going to move the needle, not least in a first public meeting. What’s really important, for the moment, is that the event takes place. That people are talking is more important than what they say.
It was Martin Luther King who told his fellow Americans that they had to learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools- Ranier Fsadni
The president is offering a gateway. Some critics miss the point when they insist that Vella is going about the conference all wrong because he’s leaving out this or that. They’re not mistaken about what’s needed; they’re wrong about the sequence.
Of course, you can’t have national unity, ultimately, without a discussion of and by political parties. Proposing a truth and reconciliation commission is certainly an interesting idea. But to begin with one or the other would be like trying to run before we can walk – or, rather, confront home truths before we’ve learned how to talk.
Vella’s conference is mild and inoffensive because that’s the only starting point you can have under the auspices of a non-partisan president. It’s a baby step because our public discourse is infantile.
If we hope for more, then we have to work for it. We have to invest some energy in the conference. The participation it attracts will determine whether the president acquires the moral authority to become more ambitious.
Vella’s own presentation of the issues inevitably showed a slant we already knew he had. But it doesn’t have to determine everything. If the conference is serious, then constructive engagement will shape the agenda beyond the end of February.
Where it goes will, of course, depend on the political honesty of the project. But do not prejudge on the basis of anyone’s preconceptions at the beginning. We are in the morass that we’re in because we’re so polarised. Our starting points are bound to be far apart.
Do not, however, underestimate the power of dialogue to change people’s minds or for things to emerge that no one expects. As long as the president does not seek to impose consensus – an effort that would see the initiative fail – but only to shape the environment of discussion, then let’s be ready to be surprised. Let’s write no one off.
It was Martin Luther King who told his fellow Americans that they had to learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. Half a century later, Vella is telling us the same thing.
How he came to this realisation – why after the end of a pugnacious political career and not in its middle – is less important. Conversions take place in times of profound crisis – on sick-beds or at the death of a loved one – because crises make us reconsider our priorities. It’s why I’m taking up the president’s wager.